


Strangers Come to Supper

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Criminal Minds
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Addiction, Secrets, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garcia's new assistant is odd, but somehow still manages to find her way into their little family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_And if strangers come to supper they shall be served with more according as they have need_

_\- Robert Grosseteste_

 

Hotch is there to deal with the fallout when they tell Garcia that she’ll have to share an office with the new technical analyst. First of all, Garcia doesn’t even want there to be another technical analyst, she’s adamant that she doesn’t need the help, and secondly, she’s never dealt well with having her space invaded by others. Her lair is her kingdom, and she is the supreme queen. Willow Rosenberg is seconded from some agency he hasn’t heard of, the ICW, and he was not consulted about her appointment. He’s not very happy about her appointment, but he’s willing to give her a chance. After all, Prentiss had turned out alright, even though she was a tactical appointment by Strauss. He knows Garcia is quick to make judgments when she feels her team is threatened, and he doesn’t want to drive Rosenberg away before she’s even started, if it turns out she’s alright. And if it turns out she is the worst kind of political appointee, he can shield Garcia from her, instead.

It seems that, for once, the higher-ups have shown some sense. Rosenberg isn’t fazed by Garcia’s distinctly chilly welcome, and asks cheerfully where she can set up her things. She looks as though she fits in Garcia’s lair, in her brightly colored loose clothing, and even compliments her on some of her trinkets with great (and genuine) enthusiasm. Garcia tells Rosenberg curtly that she can have the computer furthest in the corner, that’s only connected to one monitor, keeping her army of monitors to herself. Rosenberg doesn’t seem to mind, and she somehow manages to set up her things without massively interrupting Garcia’s arrangement of the office, something that Hotch marks in her favor. She doesn’t have much – only a collection of crystals and a few photographs of her friends. There are no photographs of family, but the same core group seems to feature in most of the photographs – a short blonde, a tall brunette, a man who looks remarkably like Kevin Lynch with an eye-patch, and an older man in tweed. The photographs seem to stretch from high school up to the current day. There’s also a photograph of Rosenberg with a curvaceous blonde that’s given prime of place in front of all the others. They look like they’re in their late teens or early twenties, and Rosenberg treats this photograph with care and attention she doesn’t give to any of the others. The other woman is most likely deceased, he thinks – if she were still in Rosenberg’s life she would use a more up-to-date photograph, and if they had separated, Rosenberg would not be treating the photograph with such care.

Rosenberg gets right to work, without wasting much time. She isn’t fazed by Garcia’s code, which he can tell impresses the other woman, and she earns extra brownie points by showing appreciation for the skill involved in the code. It’s clear that while she’s almost as good as Garcia, she’s less experienced, as though she hasn’t done this for a while, and is more than willing to listen to Garcia’s directions and follow her lead, meaning she’s not a threat. This might just work, Hotch thinks.

*

Morgan is the first of the team, other than Hotch, to meet Willow Rosenberg. They haven’t had any official welcoming event, she’s just slotted into work, and from the lack of complaints from the tech cave, Morgan thinks she must be settling in well. All communication so far has gone via Garcia, so Morgan almost forgets she’s there.

“Hey Baby Girl, I need you to do me a favor,” he says, before he is fully through the door.

“Umm… sure,” says an uncertain voice that is definitely not Garcia.

“Sorry, I thought you were Garcia,” he says with an easy smile.

“Nope, definitely not her. I’m Willow. Willow Rosenberg. Hi. I’m a new technical analyst, I’m going to be sharing this office and maybe helping you on some cases. Garcia said something about being overworked and under-paid, so they decided to bring me in, to help with the over-workedness I guess, although that doesn’t really change the under-paidness. She was just showing me a few things on the computers here, but then she got a phone call and had to step out and left me in here. I’m sure she’ll be back any moment now,” Willow Rosenberg says brightly and smiles at him. “Or I can help. I’m good with the helping. I don’t know how everything works yet, because I’m new, which I said already, and if it’s classified or something then I can go now and let you wait for Garcia on your own, if that would help. Would that help?”

He isn’t sure she’s taken a breath during the entire spiel, and suddenly he’s faced with the prospects of two Garcias – two brightly colored, chipper, fast-talking technical analysts. He’s not sure the FBI will be able to handle them.

“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll just wait here for Garcia. I’m SSA Derek Morgan, by the way. I’m with the BAU.”

Her eyes light up at that, and he’s sure there’s another babble coming, except Garcia returns at that moment and deals with his query in her usual incredibly fast and semi-professional manner.

“You’ve met Willow, right,” she asks just as Morgan is about to leave. “Isn’t she just adorable? I’m gonna take her home and adopt her, and never let her leave.”

Rosenberg, to her credit, doesn’t look too startled at that, just smiles brightly at Garcia.

“You’re not my real mom,” she says. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Morgan chuckles. He can just imagine what a headache the pair of them will be to Hotch.

*

When Rossi meets Willow, she doesn’t notice him for the first five minutes in the room. She’s intently writing code on her computer, and ignores both his greeting to her and the subsequent conversation he has with Garcia about their latest case.

“How are you doing on the Homeland Security thing?” he asks. There’s a possibility their UnSub is an undercover agent gone rogue, and they don’t have time to play the political game with HLS to get the files, so he’s asked her if she can hack in for him.

“Willow’s working on it right now,” Garcia tells him cheerfully. “She’s almost as good as I am.”

Willow’s humming under her breath as she works, and while he has no idea what she’s doing, he can tell it’s complicated.

“Got it! The HLS database is now your personal playground – I reckon we’ve got about 7 minutes or so before the next sweep that’ll kick us out,” she exclaims and turns around triumphantly. She sees him and her face falls.

“Umm… I was just joking about the Homeland Security thing,” she says nervously. “It was a bad joke. I wouldn’t actually hack into the HLS, because that would be wrong. And illegal. And bad. Very, very bad.”

“Meet Willow Rosenberg,” Garcia says, unnecessarily. Morgan has gleefully told them all about the new technical analyst in Garcia’s lair. “She’s almost as good as I am.”

“Good to meet you,” he says, shaking her hand. “So, if you’re _not_ hacked into the HLS, I don’t suppose you’d be able to _not_ tell me if there’s an agent who goes by the name Ben Goldberg?” he asks with a straight face.

She looks surprised for a moment, then smiles brightly at him. She turns around for a few seconds and types at lightning speed, pulling up a few files on the screen.

“Well, I’m just guessing here, but it’s possible that there might be records of him going back to 2001. And I might be able to tell you that his real name’s Jason Mott. You know, if I were to hack in, that might be what I’d find. Which, of course, I haven’t. And if there are any files on him waiting on your computer, then I have absolutely no idea where they came from, or how they ended up there.”

“Of course not,” he says. “Because that would be bad.”

“Very bad,” she says. His lips twitch.

“OK, you are making me jealous here,” Garcia interrupts. “I’m your favorite tech. It’s lucky I know that Willow’s brilliant, otherwise you’d be in serious trouble, buttercup.”

“You didn’t _not_ hack into HLS for me, Garcia,” he says over his shoulder on the way out of the door. He doesn’t stay to catch Garcia’s reply, but he hears her saying something indignantly to Willow and Willow reply brightly.

*

The rest of the team meets Willow when she’s delivering some files to the bullpen. Morgan takes obvious delight in introducing her to JJ, Spencer, Prentiss and Rossi. This last one elicits a reaction beyond the usual pleasantries, which is perhaps not so surprising. There are quite a few fans of his book tied to the FBI, maybe more than in real life.

“I didn’t realize who you were when you came to see me earlier. I read your book,” Willow says. “It was really interesting, I especially liked the part where you talk about the nature of evil, although I’m not sure I agree with you on everything, but then, I guess it’s a very personal thing what someone thinks is evil and what they think is wrong but essentially forgivable.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Rossi says, a diplomatic reply he’s perfected over years of dealing with fans.

“Of course, Professor Walsh hated it, absolutely slated it in class, but seeing as how she turned out to be an arrogant, power-hungry, psychotic _bitch_ , I’m counting that as a mark in its favor,” Willow continues cheerfully. Slightly taken aback at the mismatch between her words and general countenance, Rossi blinks.

“She was?”

“Oh, totally. There was this thing where she tried to murder Buffy, and kept Riley drugged up without his knowledge, and that’s not mentioning the unethical biological experiments she was running in the basement of a frat house.”

He’s not quite sure if this is actually true, or if she’s some kind of conspiracy nut. Not even the FBI is immune to them.

“Professor Walsh? Are you talking about Maggie Walsh? I haven’t heard anything from her in years.”

“Oh, she died,” Willow says. “Her foster son, I guess you could call it, killed her. It was a thing. They couldn’t get anyone in to take over for her, so they had to cancel psych for the semester. Which kind of sucked, because I _liked_ psych, even though the professor was literally an evil bitch. She was a good teacher, except for the, you know, trying to kill us part. And the evil experiments.”

“Did they catch the foster son?” Morgan wants to know.

“No, but don’t worry. He’s dead too. It wasn’t really a matter that the police could deal with, to be honest. And the police in Sunnydale were useless, anyway. I don’t think I ever saw them actually investigate a crime, except for when Kendra died, and then they got it completely wrong.”

There are a lot of threads there to pick up on, and Rossi doesn’t quite know where to start.

“Well, it’s been great meeting you, but I better get back to work,” she says cheerfully and waves at them.

“Well, she’s certainly special,” Prentiss comments.

“You can say that again,” Rossi agrees.

*

They don’t quite know what she does for the FBI when she’s not helping Garcia. Her odd comments about Maggie Walsh, the almost casual way she seems to treat both the death of Professor Walsh and her foster son, sets Garcia digging into her background. Willow is aware she’s doing it, and she catches her in the act one time when she’s looking at Dawn Summer’s high school transcripts.

“Now it’s starting to get a bit creepy,” Willow says. “Looking up my best friend’s little sister’s school history is just a _little_ stalkery.”

Garcia turns around quickly.

“Well, I couldn’t get into her classified Army file,” she says. “Which, do you know how secure that is? We’ve only known each other a couple of months, but you should know that there is nothing there I can’t get into. _Nothing_.”

“Well, that’s clearly not true,” Willow says unconcerned. “Or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“See, that’s what concerns me. No, it terrifies me. You, my sweet sugarplum, are terrifying.”

“I thought nothing terrified you,” Morgan says, stepping through the door and handing over a file to Garcia.

“Did you know Willow has a top-secret file with the Army that I can’t hack into? And all her friends do as well?” she demands. “That’s just wrong.”

Morgan turns and looks at Willow, who just shrugs.

“We did some consultancy work for them a while back, it must come from then. I mean, the project _was_ classified. They weren’t really clear on what would happen if we _did_ tell anyone, but I think the words ‘treason’ and ‘prison’ were mentioned. I don’t really think I’d do well in prison. I’d much rather be un-prisoned.”

“Yeah, but this file dates from _1998_. You would have been, what, seventeen? Who on Earth gets a seventeen-year-old to consult on a classified project? Not even Spencer got to do that, and you’re not Spencer, no offense.”

“Wait – 1998?” Willow does a double take. “That’s not right. That’s _two years_ before we got involved! They’d been keeping tabs on us for two years! Those _poopy-heads_! They must have been working there right from the start and known all about –” she breaks off. “I need to make a phone call.”

She whizzes indignantly out of the computer room, as if nineteen is much better than seventeen.

“Am I the only one who’s slightly worried and very intrigued by our new technical analyst?” Morgan asks.

*

They see a fair amount of Willow over the next few months. She only occasionally works directly with the BAU, but Garcia has delivered on her threat to “adopt” Willow, and she’s frequently around and about, babbling cheerfully at them and plying them with cookies.

“I’m a nervous baker,” she says. “Baking is my therapy.”

It seems she needs a lot of therapy. The signs are obvious to them, trained in the study of human behavior as they are. Willow suffers from PTSD, she’s hyper-vigilant and frequently doesn’t sleep during the night, avoids certain topics, is nervous around guns and jumpy. She knows that she has it, and is in therapy (actual therapy, of the non-baking variety). She tells them that working as a technical analyst in the FBI is her way of taking a break, while still feeling like she’s doing her bit to make the world a little bit safer. She doesn’t tell them what she’s taking a break from. They think it has to do with her Army consulting.

*

Kevin knows Willow from before, vaguely. She’s his cousin’s best friend from kindergarten, and they met once or twice as kids. He doesn’t know much about Willow – he remembers her as a bright, friendly, and cheerful kid, and now she is a bright, friendly, and cheerful adult with a classified Army file that not even Garcia can break into. She keeps in contact with Xander, Kevin’s cousin, who Kevin hasn’t seen in years, not since he bailed on his wedding, in what was probably the most confusing day of Kevin’s life. Apparently he wears an honest-to-God eye-patch now. Kevin and Garcia spend one of their afternoons off trying to break into their classified files (all Willow’s close friends seem to have one, including Xander, and that’s some kind of weird twilight zone shit right there, because _Xander_ , really?), and all they get for it is two fried hard-drives. It’s hard not to jump to conspiracy theories, but it’s _Willow_. Kevin just can’t match up the idea of top-secret Army consultant with the woman who brings cookies to the office, is into some kind of New Age Wicca spirituality thing, and is afraid of frogs.

*

Willow is proud of her Jewish heritage, and she is open about her current Wiccan beliefs. So it surprises Garcia when they are getting ready to go out for a girls’ night out with JJ and Prentiss, and Willow is rummaging through her necklaces, that she pulls out an ornate Celtic cross. She doesn’t put it on, but she does linger over it a few moments.

“It was a gift from a friend,” she explains. “An old teacher.”

“Can’t have been a very good friend,” Prentiss says, “if they didn’t even know your religion. I mean, I can guess they might not have known you’re Wiccan, but it seems like fairly bad taste to give a cross to someone called Rosenberg without checking first.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Willow says, idly. “It’s a family heirloom. Buffy’s got most of his old heirlooms, she’s kind of the daughter he never had, but we’ve all got at least one cross. All the Scoobies, I mean. That’s what we called ourselves in high school. He gave it to me for protection. His family is way old and distinguished, and English, very, very English, and he had a lot of crosses to give out, and well… We can always do with more protection. Speaking of, I made protection stones for the team, do you think they’ll laugh at me if I give them to them? I know a lot of people think of Wicca as just woo.”

It seems a bit weird, to believe a cross can offer some kind of protection to a Jewish Wicca, but who is Garcia to judge? It’s a harmless belief, and if it doesn’t really match up with Wicca or Judaism, well, lots of people mix and match religions, and Garcia is all for personal expression and not forcing oneself to fit into a certain mold.

“I don’t think they’ll laugh at your protection stones, but you might have to deal with Spencer’s comments on how they’re scientifically not valid, and that the concept of auras is a fallacy,” she tells Willow.

“I think I can deal with Spencer,” Willow grins. “Besides, these stones have nothing to do with auras, they’re to repel danger.”

“In that case, go for it, sweetness. This lot needs all the danger-repellent they can get.”

*

“You work in a building where almost all staff carries guns as a matter of course. You need to get over your fear, Willow,” Prentiss says.

“I can handle guns fine as long as they’re tucked away,” Willow protests.

“And they won’t always be tucked away. You _need_ to get comfortable working with guns,” Prentiss says again, patiently. She knows how frightening this can be, and from what she’s gathered from off-hand comments, Willow’s gun-related PTSD is over a decade old. She doesn’t quite know how Willow managed to let it go for so long without getting help. Willow mutters something about bouncing from crisis to crisis, which doesn’t exactly reassure her.

The first time she takes Willow to the gun range, they don’t even fire any weapons. Just the act of holding an unloaded gun makes Willow hyperventilate. The second time, she manages to hold it, but then there’s an agent shooting in the lane next to them (even though Prentiss had specifically asked for it to be cleared), and suddenly she’s in the middle of a flashback. She falls to her knees.

“Tara? Tara!? Baby? Baby, come on! Get up! No, no, no!”

She makes a soft keening noise at the back of her throat. Prentiss crouches down in front of her, keeping a safe distance. The agent on the other lane has realized something is wrong, and stopped shooting, thank God, so she just has to make a few hand motions to signal that she has it under control.

“Willow, it’s me, Prentiss. You’re at the gun range at the FBI headquarters. You’re having a flashback. I know it feels real, but it’s not. You’re safe. I need you to breathe for me. Take a deep breath, and let it out. Good. Again.”

Slowly, Willow is coaxed back into herself.

“It’s OK, you had a flashback,” she says, as Willow’s eyes clear.

“Oh God,” Willow says. “Oh God.”

“It’s OK,” Prentiss says once again. The other agent hands her a glass of water, which she passes on to Willow. “Here, have a drink.”

“I’m sorry,” Willow says.

“It’s OK,” Prentiss repeats. “It happens. That’s why we’re here, to make sure this doesn’t happen when it counts.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Willow confesses.

“ _I_ know you can,” Prentiss says, putting all the conviction she feels into her words, and is rewarded by a very hesitant smile.

*

The first time Willow babysits Jack is when the rest of them have to fly away on a case, and Jessica is away on business. The case ends up dragging out for two nights, both of which Willow spends at Hotch’s house. They Skype each night and Jack seems to be happy, so Hotch tries not to worry too much. When he returns, Jack is out of the door and in his arms before Willow can even tell him to come in.

“Someone’s happy to see you,” she says, taking his briefcase, as he tries to get his shoes off with Jack in his arms.

“Hey, buddy, did you have fun?” he asks.

Jack nods enthusiastically.

“Miss Willow knows the best stories. Did you know that her friend Xander got turned into a fish?” he asks. Hotch and Willow share an amused glance.

“Well, he didn’t actually turn into a fish. We managed to stop it before that point, which was really good, because he was being dosed with piranha steroids, and having a piranha as your best friend would not be of the good. It would make for some awkward conversations when your best friend suddenly considered you a tasty snack,” Willow tells them.

“And this other time, he was possessed by a hyena spirit,” Jack informs Hotch.

“Poor Xander,” Hotch comments. “He doesn’t seem to have very good luck.”

Willow snorts.

“We used to call him a demon magnet, because he kept attracting trouble. Like the time he got split into two, and each thought the other was an impostor.”

Jack’s eyes are wide.

“What happened?”

“Well, they didn’t know that they had been split. One was really suave and confident, and the other was goofy and immature, and they both thought the other Xander was evil, so they kept trying to kill one another. They didn’t know that if one died, the other one would too. Buffy got to them in time, luckily, and stepped in before suave Xander could kill goofy Xander, and then we did a spell to join them back together. Which we’re all very grateful worked, because the world really doesn’t need two Xanders. I mean, I love the guy and all, he’s my best friend since kindergarten, but I think two of them for any long period of time would bring on the apocalypse, and trust me when I say, I know all about the apocalypse. I am an expert in apocalypse.”

“Wow.”

“It wasn’t a very hard spell,” Willow says as if to reassure him. “It’s much easier to undo magic than it is to do it in the first place.”

It’s clear that asking her to babysit was one of Hotch’s better ideas. Jack clearly adores her, and she’s definitely got the imagination to keep up with Jack. The next time Willow babysits, Jack has a story about how her friend Dawn once was hit by a stray spell that made her float on the ceiling for 24 hours before they could undo it (and all the trouble they had to go to make sure she got fed that day), and the time after that, she tells him about the time their Thanksgiving was interrupted by a Native American spirit who wanted revenge for what the settlers had done to his tribe. Hotch wonders where she gets all these stories.

“We had a mythology club in high school, and we’d make up stories of how the myths we studied could be applied to our own lives,” she says when he asks. “I’ve got loads more stories to tell, although some aren’t exactly suitable for kids Jack’s age.”

She grins at Hotch.

“Maybe I’ll tell them to the team, one day.”

“Maybe,” he says, with a half-smile. He is very interested to hear what Willow and her friends came up with.

*

Willow is one of the few people JJ has seen who can keep up with Spencer and his random knowledge, although her knowledge tends more to myths and legends than science fiction and factoids on pretty much everything. But they manage to have an hour-long discussion about the differences between Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform that has everyone else leave and get coffee. They’re still at it when they return.

“I didn’t even know there were different kinds of cuneiform,” Rossi tells JJ in an undertone.

“You learn something new every day,” JJ says.

“That wasn’t exactly top of the list of things I wanted to learn today,” he says without rancor.

*

They’re working a case of savage murders by an UnSub who seems to imitate some kind of animal in his method, when it’s taken off them by an army general. It’s classified, he says. It should never have come to their attention, he says. They need to forget they ever saw this, he says. He needs everything they’ve got on the case, and he wants to wipe every evidence trace off their computer network. However much Hotch and the team protest and argue, he has the credentials, Strauss’s (reluctant) backing, and a signed order by the President that he’s waving at them.

But hell if any of them are going to let him intimidate Garcia and Willow without them there to protect their computer geeks.

“I really don’t need an escort,” he says to them, as they follow him.

“Oh, we’re not escorting you,” JJ says. “We’re on our way to see Willow and Garcia.”

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t question them further.

“Are you Willow Rosenberg?” the general asks Willow, before he even so much as mentions anything about wiping the computers.

“I am,” she says, warily.

“I’m General Haviland of the US Army. I would like to speak with you in private.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Willow protests.

“We’re not accusing you of anything,” he says curtly. “It’s to do with a project you consulted on a while ago.”

Willow blanches, but her voice is steady when she replies.

“I don’t really do that kind of stuff that much any longer. You should call the Council for help.”

 “I’d really prefer to have this discussion in private,” General Haviland says.

“And I’d really prefer to not,” she replies, which is good enough for Hotch. He moves closer to her, hovering protectively with one hand on her shoulder. He doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, but he knows whose side he’s on. He’s ready to step in the moment Willow makes any indication that she wants him to, but he’ll let her handle the situation herself up until then. She smiles appreciatively at him.

“The ICW can be somewhat… difficult to deal with,” the general says. “As a US federal employee, we would much rather deal directly with you.”

“You should call the Council,” she says again. “I don’t do Sunnydale stuff anymore. Things go bad when I do Sunnydale stuff. You really don’t want that, trust me.”

Hotch wonders what the hell Sunnydale is code for (isn’t that the town Willow comes from? The one that disappeared in a sink hole five or six years ago?), and what Willow did for the Army that they would come to her, out of the blue, almost a decade later, and demand her help.

“I can arrange it so you no longer do _this_ kind of stuff,” he threatens, gesturing towards the computers. “What would you do then?”

“Since when does the US Army have say over who the FBI employs?” Garcia objects.

“Actually, I’m not even employed by the FBI,” Willow says, facing him head-on without any kind of nervousness. “I’m a Council liaison, meaning a Council employee, so by all means, General Haviland. Please do carry out your threat and have me fired, if you want to piss off the Council. I’d very much like to see that happen, it might be amusing.” There’s a twisted smile on her face that Hotch has never seen before, and doesn’t like – it doesn’t fit the Willow they know. “And if you want to deal with me because you’ve broken the arrangement we made when you withdrew from Sunnydale and don’t want the Council to know, you might want to reconsider that. Because if I find out you not only broke our arrangement, but you also tried to cover it up, I’m going to be miffed.”

The General pales.

“There is no need to let our feelings run away with us, Miss Rosenberg,” he says hastily. “I will call the Council immediately.”

Willow smiles at him, this time her usual cheery smile.

“Good, you do that.”

“What on Earth were you involved in?” Morgan asks in awe as the General leaves, rather hurriedly.

“The Army was doing all kinds of unethical experiments in my home town. We kind of shut it down,” Willow says. “There was this pretty much indestructible demon robot hybrid powered by a uranium core. It was a thing.”

As Willow launches into yet another Sunnydale story, as inventive as anything she tells Jack at bedtime, Hotch, not for the first time, suspects she is feeding them these fantasy stories to distract from the real secret she’s hiding.

*

Jack has gone to bed, and Hotch and Willow are sharing a bottle of wine on the couch. Tonight, she told Jack (and Hotch, who managed to come home in time to hear it) about the time the town of Sunnydale all started bursting out into song and dance at random intervals. She even sung a few snippets for them, although she claimed her singing voice was not as strong as some of her friends.

“You’ve done wonders for Jack,” he says, breaking the comfortable silence. “You’ve filled a hole I didn’t even know needed filling.”

“I am the best at being cool grown-up friend slash auntie,” she says with a smile. “I did it before, with Dawn, but then I was a lot younger, and she was a bit older, so I was more like a big sister than an auntie, really.”

She visibly stops herself from carrying on, letting him speak.

“It’s been hard,” he says. He doesn’t normally share, but Willow invites confidences, and he knows she will understand, even though she has no children of her own. “I do my best, of course, and there’s Jessica, but I worry that he’s missing out by not having a mother. And I’m away a lot.”

“I think he’s doing fine,” Willow says.

“I know he’s doing fine,” Hotch agrees. “But I still worry.”

“Yeah,” she says. “You always worry about the ones you love.”

“After Hayley, I don’t think I would have gone on if it weren’t for Jack. I was pretty bad, for a while. I thought about joining her. The only thing that kept me here was the thought of what would happen to Jack if I did.”

He hasn’t said that out loud to any of his team, but he thinks they know. They always know. Willow doesn’t say anything for a long while, then she says quietly.

“Xander. He’s the reason I’m still here. The reason a lot of people are still here.”

“Tell me about Tara,” he asks, because there will never be a right moment to bring it up, and right now is less wrong than many others. Her breath hitches. She clenches her hands and doesn’t look at him.

“Tara was – she was wonderful. She was so kind and gentle, and wise and sweet, and I loved her. Goddess, I loved her.”

She swallows.

“What happened?” he asks gently.

“She was shot. He was aiming for Buffy,” she says, her voice completely flat. “Tara was caught in the crossfire. She died at once. Buffy had to go to the hospital. I went to the hospital, and then, when I was sure Buffy was going to be alright, I hunted him down.”

“Did you kill him?” He makes sure to keep his tone free of judgment. He thinks it says a great deal about her that her first priority was her living friend, not vengeance.

“Will you arrest me if I say yes?”

Hotch doesn’t say anything. Thinks of Elle. Thinks of Hayley and Foyet. He understands much better than he did.

“No,” he says.

Willow is silent for a beat, then she says,

“Yes. I killed him. I was going to kill more people, too. _A lot_ more. I just wanted everything – the pain – to end. There was so much pain. Xander… he, he talked me down. Told me he loved me. Said I was his best friend since kindergarten. Reminded me of the first day of kindergarten, when I broke the yellow crayon and cried because I was too scared to tell anyone. Told me he loved both crayon-breaky Willow and scary-veiny Willow. That if I was going to kill all those people, I had to go through him first. And I - I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill Xander. He saved my life.” She draws a deep breath. “Then I went to therapy in England, and I got a lot better. All that dark energy within me was cleansed, and here I am.”

He’s sure there’s more to the story, but he doesn’t press. She’s said all she needed to say, and he has heard all he needs to hear.

“I killed George Foyet,” he says. She looks up at him. He realizes he’s only ever talked to therapists about it before, and it’s different when it’s a friend. He wonders if it’s the same for her.

*

With the help of Spencer, Garcia, and Kevin, Willow is coming to fully embrace her geek side. She’s hosting them at her flat, playing the Lord of the Rings board game, when there’s a knock on the door, and Willow goes to investigate.

“Dawn!” she exclaims happily, “and Andrew,” slightly less happily. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not really glad to see you, of course,” she hastens to add.

“Don’t be too glad until you’ve heard why we’ve come,” the girl who must be Dawn says. “And sorry about Andrew, it was either take him with me or leave him with Kennedy, and nobody thought that seemed like a good idea.”

 “Well, can I get you anything?” Willow asks. “I’ve got company at the moment.”

“Oh, sorry, is this a bad time? We can come back.”

“Hey, I want to meet your new friends,” this is Andrew, speaking for the first time. “Are they cool? Are they actual FBI agents? Are they like warriors for the law, bravely standing up for truth and justice in the face of the depths of human evil?”

“I, uh, they,” Willow says, and then trails off.

“We’ll come back, it’s not really important,” Dawn says. “I’m glad you’re doing ok. It’s good that you’re being all social and friends-having. Friends are good.”

“I’m getting there,” Willow replies. “I’m still having my flaky moments, but at least I’m not going all dark, so go me!”

“Go you,” Dawn says, and there’s the sound of two palms hitting each other.

“Actually, it is of utmost importance. We’re here to request your aid on a quest to save lives,” Andrew says, and yeah, Willow really wasn’t kidding when she said he had a penchant for over-dramatizing everything. Quest? Not even Spencer speaks like that, and ever since the Fischer King case, he’s been somewhat averse to the word.

“I – I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Willow says hesitantly.

“Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world or anything,” Dawn says brightly (almost too brightly), and Spencer vaguely hears Willow let out a breath of relief.

 “I want to help, don’t get me wrong, it’s just, I don’t think I’m in a good enough place yet,” she says. “I don’t want to fall back in… you know. I mean, obviously if it’s a genuine emergency then I can’t afford not to help, and we’ll just have to deal with… you know… if it happens, but…”

“I get it,” Dawn says, voice full of sympathy. “I wouldn’t have asked, only Buffy insisted. I’ll tell her I asked, and you’re not there yet.”

“Yeah, thanks. I mean, I like it when you visit, and you can come any time, but...”

“You don’t want us to come as Council representatives. I get it, Willow. I do. We’ll be off now, and let you live your normal life. Go you, having a proper safe job and everything.”

“Normal and safe being relative, of course,” Willow says. “Pretty much all of my co-workers have been shot at least once.”

“Meh, it’s not dangerous unless you’re swinging a battle axe at close range,” Dawn says cheekily. “Besides, I’m sure your super competent FBI agent co-workers will protect you against harm. I mean, they’re not Buffy, but on the upside, you’re not all alone against the world any longer.”

Andrew wanders into the living room, ignoring the heart-to-heart the two girls seem to be having in the hallway. He spots the game they’re introducing Willow to.

“Oh my God, Lord of the Rings! I love Lord of the Rings. The board game is obviously subpar, but the films, oh my God. Don’t you have anything else to play? I’m really good at D&D.”

“Andrew, if you don’t shut up and get out of here, I will use your entrails to strangle you with,” Dawn calls brightly, moving to take his arm. “Willow doesn’t need us butting in. Come on, let’s go. Or I’ll hand you over to Willow, and she will come up with a far more creative way to try and kill you.”

“No, thanks, the last time was bad enough,” Andrew mutters, and there’s an uncomfortable silence, during which Dawn steps on his foot hard enough to make him yowl.

“Last time?” Kevin asks obliviously, because he doesn’t know what they know about Willow, doesn’t hear the way Andrew’s not entirely joking, doesn’t know that Willow has a dark past that she doesn’t like talking about that Spencer is almost entirely certain involves drug abuse – she hasn’t said so openly, but she’s left enough hints that they’re all pretty sure.

“It was during my dark period,” Willow says reluctantly. “Just after Tara was killed. I was high. There was some reckless driving involved.”

Kevin looks like he deeply regrets asking.

“You can say that again,” Andrew mutters.

“Andrew, shut up. We’re going,” Dawn says firmly.

They leave, but somehow the easy atmosphere that was there before they arrived has gone, and the rest of them wrap up the game fairly quickly.

“Do you want to… talk?” Spencer asks a bit awkwardly, because of all of them, he thinks he’s the best placed to understand.

“No, I’ll be fine, but thanks. I’m just going to phone Buffy and yell at her for sending Andrew along. We’ve mostly worked out our bad history, Andrew and me, but sometimes things get… awkward.”

“Yeah,” Spencer says, and that seems like such an understatement for how things had gotten, but she smiles at him, and he does honestly believe she’ll be fine.

*

Willow never invites anyone in. It’s subtle, and it takes them some time to catch on, but she never says “Come in”. She’s perfected the art of welcoming someone in, without actually saying it. She’ll stand aside with a smile and say “I’ve made cookies” or “I’m sorry about the mess” or “It’s good to see you guys” when they come over to her place, and “Jack’s missed you” or “Hey, how was the case?”, when she’s been babysitting while Hotch has been away. But she never says “Welcome”, never says “Come on in.” He’s not sure she even realizes she’s doing it.

*

There’s a case that seems to hit her particularly hard, one where young adolescent girls are brutally murdered. She used to teach at a school, she says, and she can’t help seeing her girls in the victims. The day after they close the case, she’s at Spencer’s NA meeting – he’s made sure she knew that it was an option, after seeing how twitchy she got towards the end. He recognizes that kind of twitchiness.

She smiles hesitantly at him when she walks in, and sits in the back. She doesn’t say much during the meeting, but they go for dinner afterwards, and there she’s a lot chattier. She doesn’t say what exactly it was she was addicted to, but she speaks of feeling powerful, of feeling like she had finally left shy, mousy, inconsequential Willow of high school behind her. How she tried to quit, almost succeeded, but fell back into addiction when Tara was killed in front of her. Then she did something “very, very bad and dangerous” in her own words, and decided to go clean. Or was persuaded to, it’s not very clear from her tale.

She says she still struggles with addiction. There was an incident, and they lost several students and teachers from the school, and she fell back into addiction.

“Only once, and only for a few moments,” she says. “But I knew I had to leave, to let myself grieve, and then heal. And I am. Healing. But this case, it brought it all back up again. And I don’t know if I will ever heal enough to go back. Sometimes I don’t know if I want to.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I’m entirely happy with this chapter, but I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted it, so I’m posting it as it is. I made up the demon species Takthroon.

They’re on their third day of going nowhere, living off too little sleep and too much caffeine. Apart from their appearance, Willow and Garcia have found nothing to tie the victims together, so their victimology is still Caucasian, brown-haired men in their mid-20s to mid-30s, which doesn’t really give them a lot to go on. The geographical profile isn’t leading them anywhere, either – at the moment it’s still just random places, and they’re in that horrible place where they’re waiting for more murders to happen so they can get more information on their UnSub. At least they’re working out of Quantico, so they can go home and sleep when they need it.

Reid goes home to catch a few hours’ sleep on Hotch’s orders, and fails to turn up the next morning. They try phoning him, and when Morgan goes over to his flat to investigate, he’s not there, although there is evidence that he actually did go home, and slept, and that he left for work as normal. The people at his regular coffee shop say he stopped by on the way to work, just like normal. His phone is off, so they have no way of tracking him. The atmosphere in the conference room is tense, to say the least.

It’s about an hour before the video screen in the conference room is taken over, and there’s a video of Reid projected to them. Garcia and Willow are on it immediately, trying to track the signal, but their UnSub is clever, and they get nothing. That’s disconcerting enough, that Willow and Garcia in tandem can’t work it out, but the most disconcerting thing is the video in itself. If it wasn’t for the slightly different background and the different clothes Reid’s wearing, it could almost be a copy of the video Hankel took. All the details are there – his hands cuffed, the trickle of blood on his left temple, he’s even missing a sock.

“How the hell did the UnSub know that?” Morgan demands, but nobody answers.

“Check all the cemeteries in the area,” Hotch commands, and Willow pulls up a map immediately – she has one saved on her desktop, and Morgan wonders not for the first time what the hell is up with that girl, because someone so life-affirming should not have a saved copy of the cemeteries of D.C. on her desktop.

“I think we can rule out Arlington,” Prentiss says. “Someone would be bound to notice.”

There’s a crackle from the video, and then a voice says:

“If your friends are looking at cemeteries, they needn’t bother. I won’t be making the same mistakes Tobias Hankel did.”

“How do you know about that?” Reid asks. “Who are you?”

“You don’t need to know that,” the voice says. It’s male, but that’s all they can tell from it. “Just that I can make you do anything I want.”

“No,” Reid replies, but Morgan can tell it’s not convincing, and the disembodied voice laughs. God, of all the things he could have chosen to do, it had to be this. At least there don’t seem to be any drugs, yet. Morgan hopes to God there won’t be.

Reid flinches, then says “I won’t do it,” and Morgan knows he’s locked in a flashback. He hates that there is nothing they can do, that they’re as powerless now as they were last time Reid went missing.

“Well, this is all very amusing, but I’m getting bored with your predictability,” the voice says. “Why don’t you amuse your little friends? Perhaps do a dance for them?”

“No,” Reid says, but even as he says it, he’s standing up and the launches into a perfect tap routine. It looks odd with his hands cuffed together, wearing only one sock and no shoes, but he’s perfectly co-ordinated and the steps are all there. His eyes are desperate, and his mouth is a perfect O. Morgan suspects he’s as shocked by this as they all are. He looks round, and sees Willow on the phone.

“Hi, Giles, it’s me. My colleague has been kidnapped and I think it’s one of ours.”

“It’s probably psychic, and pretty powerful.”

“Powerful enough that I had no idea there even was a psychic in town.”

“I don’t know, all it’s done so far is kidnapping our agent and making him tap dance. Wait, I think I can see it.”

Morgan looks hard at the screen, but doesn’t see anything.

Reid’s not tap dancing any longer, and he looks miserable sitting on the chair.

“Please, stop,” he says. “I know it’s a hallucination.”

That’s really not good, and they’re all staring helplessly at the screen. So there _are_ drugs involved – a treacherous part of his mind whispers that maybe Willow’s right, maybe the UnSub is psychic, but he pays it no mind. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural.

“Uh-oh,” Willow says, and seeing as she’s the only one who actually seems to have a clue what’s going on (either that or she’s gone completely around the bend), that doesn’t bode well. “Giles, it’s a Takthroon.”

“I’m pretty certain, unless there’s another psychic blue stick species I don’t know about,” she says, a touch impatiently. Morgan looks at the screen, and now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can just about see a navy blue stick-like figure walking towards Reid, half hidden by the shadows. Which is stupid, of course, because navy blue stick-like figures don’t walk.

“Yes, I _know_ that,” Willow says. “But this one is kidnapping and killing people, so something must have triggered him. I don’t know what would make a Takthroon go all vicious killer, but whatever it is, it can’t be of the good.”

“Three, maybe four Slayers, I don’t know. What you really need is a powerful Wicca. Someone with strong mental shields.”

“Strong mental shields, remember. Mine are about as stable as Drusilla’s grip on reality. I can do a locator spell though. I’ll call you as soon as I have it.”

Willow puts away her phone, and ignores the way they’re all staring at her, waiting for an explanation. She takes down the map they’ve been using for their geographical profile and spreads it on the table. She chants something, holding a pendant over the map, and they exchange glances. They knew she was Wicca, of course, but they thought that was all believing in the Goddess and the Threefold Law, and being one with nature, and stones that carry protective energy (Morgan doesn’t admit that he’s wearing his, and he thinks he’s not the only one who feels somehow better with it on), and stuff like that. They, or at least Morgan, hadn’t really considered that she truly and genuinely believed in spells, before. She’s frowning as the pendulum swings erratically above the map, and chants again, a bit louder.

“Willow, honey, I don’t think you’re going to find him that way,” JJ says gently, but Willow ignores her.

Suddenly, there are lights dancing over the map, tiny little pinpricks of light, and they settle over a warehouse district in the southern suburbs of D.C.

“He’s there,” she says.

“What the hell was that? How did you manage that?” Prentiss asks. “Is there some kind of trick or technology or something?”

Willow pauses, somewhat sheepishly, he thinks.

“So, umm… you know those stories I tell Jack about demons and witches and Slayers and all that. Well, uh, they’re pretty much all true. Demons exist, Buffy’s a Vampire Slayer, I’m a witch, the Council’s mission is to fight demons. So, yeah, um. Any questions?”

“Wait a moment,” Morgan objects, because he’s not sure he’s actually hearing what he thinks he’s hearing. “You’re saying a demon has Reid. That’s a demon. They’re real.”

“Yup,” she says, a little bit too cheerfully. “That’s a Takthroon demon. They’re normally really peaceful and all with the healing and feel-goodyness, so we think something must have happened to this one to make it all killer-y.”

Morgan looks at the navy blue stick again – he can’t think of it as a real thing. He knows it’s moving, he can see all the little twigs sticking off it waving, but he still doesn’t entirely believe it.

“So if we know where Spencer is, why aren’t we already on our way?” JJ asks.

“Because I need to call in the Council,” Willow says as she dials a number on the phone and waits for it to ring. “This is something you’re not really ready to deal with, no offence or anything. It’s just, well, you’re great at dealing with humans, but the Council has way more experience with the supernatural. It’s kind of our job. Or their job, now. I’m sort of retired.”

“Willow?” the phone asks with an English accent.

“Hi Giles, you’re on speaker. I told the rest of the team what’s up.”

“Ooh, did you do the ‘The world is older than you know’ speech?” a perky female voice asks, this one American. “Because I love that speech.”

“No.”

“‘In every generation there is a chosen one’? Because that one’s a little out-dated, you know. In every generation there are a few hundred really doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“I did the ‘Demons exist, we fight them’ speech,” Willow says. “It’s pretty much what it says on the tin.”

“Short and sweet,” the woman on the other end says. “I like it. Why can’t you do that, Giles?”

“Perhaps we could focus on the task at hand?” a dry English voice asks. “Did you find your colleague?”

Willow gives them the co-ordinates.

“It’s definitely a Takthroon,” Willow says. “And he’s currently torturing Spencer, so any time you want to get on with the rescue would be good.”

“I have Buffy, Faith, and Maryam ready to go. Xin and Yolanda will provide the shields.”

“I don’t know if we can cover all of us,” a slightly accented voice says.

“Don’t worry too much about Buffy and Faith, they will be the distractions. I think the main focus should be Willow’s colleague, as he’s got no training in shielding himself at all, and yourselves. If he overwhelms one of the Slayers, that will be bad – if he overwhelms you, that might be catastrophic,” the Englishman, Giles, says.

“Yo, is the aim to kill this thing, or what?” another voice asks. This one’s huskier than the others.

“The main aim is to get Spencer out,” Willow says.

“We also need to understand what could cause a Takthroon to break his pacifist ways,” Giles says. “If it is possible, bring him in alive. His tribe will know how to deal with him. Willow, can you contact the local Takthroon tribe and ask if any of their members have been behaving oddly?”

Willow frowns.

“I didn’t think there was a tribe around here. I thought I knew about all the main species and clans. I mean, I’m not here to be all Council-y, being semi-retired and all, but I like to keep in touch with the supernatural community. Let them know I’m around and so, in case something goes wrong. If there was a tribe of Takthroons, I’d know about it.”

“If there’s no tribe, that might explain why he is killing,” a young woman suggests. She sounds like she’s hardly out of her teens.

Willow looks stricken.

“I can’t imagine what he must be feeling, cut off from his tribe,” she says. “It must be horrible, without the psychic link to his tribe he’d have nothing keeping him linked to reality! Giles, can we help him?”

“It depends on what happened to them, of course, but we do have quite good links with the LA tribe, we could see if they’d be willing to heal him.”

“Shields are in place, we’re ready to go,” Yolanda (or possibly Xin) says.

“We should go as well,” Prentiss says. Hotch has been very quiet throughout the conversation, and they look at him to see what he says. He looks at Willow.

“You can if you want,” she shrugs. “But Buffy and Faith are the best, and Yolanda’s the second-strongest witch the Council has, so things should be pretty much under control. You might just get in the way – Faith has issues with civilians wandering in on a slayage scene.”

“We’re not in the habit of leaving people behind,” Hotch says. “Gear up, people.”

“I’ll patch the feed into your data pads, so you can keep up with events,” Garcia says.

The warehouse is about 20-25 minutes away from Quantico by car. They turn on the sirens, because this is urgent.

The Takthroon, whatever that is, is still making Reid hallucinate. They don’t know what he’s seeing, but he’s pleading for the demon to stop.

Suddenly there is another voice on the tape, the young, chirpy voice from the phone.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she says, stepping into view. She’s short and blonde, and Morgan recognizes her from Willow’s photographs. Buffy, he thinks her name is. Something frilly and Californian, anyway. “Very serial killer chic, or what do you say, Faith?”

This is addressed to her companion, a taller, more voluptuous dark-haired hottie.

“I don’t know, B,” says Faith. “I mean, a warehouse, that’s kind of cliché.”

“But atmospheric,” says Buffy.

Reid is staring at them. Morgan doesn’t know if he thinks they’re a hallucination, or if he’s just surprised at their appearance. Morgan himself is very surprised – from the sound of it, they hadn’t been in D.C. when they spoke on the phone, and he knows Buffy normally lives in Europe these days, or at least that’s what Willow told them.

There are three more women, but they keep to the background – one, a young girl wearing a hijab (he thinks it must be Maryam), possibly still in her teens, is slowly making her way across to Reid, while the other two, one Chinese and one white, are chanting and holding hands.

“What are you doing here?” the Takthroon asks.

“I would have thought that’s fairly obvious,” Buffy says. “Torturing humans, well, the Council tends to disapprove of that. We’re here to stop you.”

“You shouldn’t have been able to find me. I’m psychically shielded.”

“Thing about shields,” Faith says. “Someone more powerful can break through ’em with just a few sprinkles of herbs and weird-ass chanting.”

“Do you think you can stop me, Slayer?”

Buffy rolls her eyes.

“I was willing to overlook the warehouse, because it’s practical, and atmospheric, but that’s too cliché even for me,” she says.

“We’re here to offer you a chance,” Faith says. “You’re hurting, you lost your tribe, you feel all alone, there’s an empty hole where your tribe ought to be, etc., etc. Long story short, we can help.”

“Nobody can help. They’re all dead,” he says. “Killed by fucking _humans_.”

“And so you’re out for revenge,” Faith says. “Been there, done that. Didn’t lead me anywhere good.”

“You’re stalling while your friends are shielding the human,” the Takthroon says. “Are you going to talk me to death, or what?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” Buffy says.

The two women attack at once, and Morgan can’t really see what’s going on, it’s all a tangle of arms, legs, and navy blue waving stick things flying this way and that. Neither party seems to have the upper hand.

Suddenly Reid begins screaming and convulsing, just as Maryam has reached him, a set of lock picks in her hand.

“That’s the thing about shields,” taunts the Takthroon. “Someone more powerful can easily break through them. Or did you really think some puny hedge-witch could overpower _me_?”

The two women who have been chanting in the background look pained, and Yolanda says through clenched teeth:

“I think we need you here, Willow. We can’t hold him on our own.”

Morgan wonders why she is saying that, because Willow is in Quantico, at least 20 minutes away, and the situation does not look like one that can last 20 minutes. Is it some kind of guilt trip because she left the organization?

All of a sudden, Willow appears in the warehouse. There is no way she could have made it there before them, not unless she teleported (which seems a lot more likely than it did an hour ago).

She immediately goes to Reid and puts her hands over his temples. He stops convulsing and stares up at her.

“It’s OK,” she hushes him. “You’ll be OK.”

He breathes heavily, but he seems fine otherwise. The two witches (because what else can they be) look a lot more relaxed, although the fighting women (Slayers?) are still locked in their battle. Willow turns on the Takthroon. It might be a trick of the light, but Morgan’s almost certain her eyes are black.

“Buffy, Faith, step aside,” she says. “I’ll show you puny hedge-witch, you overgrown _twig_.”

With a wave of her hand, she sends the Takthroon flying, away from Buffy and Faith. Buffy does an incredibly impressive flip back up on her feet and places herself between Willow and the demon.

“Willow, don’t,” she says simply.

“Is this the yellow-crayon speech?” Willow asks derisively. Morgan can see Hotch straighten up and lean forward in his seat, so it clearly has some kind of significance, but Morgan is completely lost. What would yellow crayons have to do with anything? Of all the things to have some kind of occult or ritual significance, yellow crayons seem like they should be at the very bottom of the list.

“Are you going to tell me how much you love me?” Willow taunts.

“If that’s what it takes,” Buffy says. “Xander’s not the only one who loves you. If you need me to tell you that I love you, warts and all, I will. Not that you have any actual warts, of course. It’s a figure of speech.”

“Please,” the Takthroon says. “I’m sorry.”

“Be quiet,” Willow commands, and with a wave of the hand she’s shut the Takthroon up.

“You don’t want to do this, Willow. In your heart of hearts, you don’t want to hurt him,” Buffy pleads.

“Yes I do,” is Willow’s rejoinder. “He’s killed people, and he tortured Spencer.”

“He was hurting,” says Buffy. “You know something about doing terrible things because you’re hurting. We can help him, rehabilitate him, and get him to the tribe in LA. You don’t have to kill him.”

“This is justice. He deserves this,” Willow says. Her voice sounds deeper than normal.

“ _You_ don’t,” says Faith. “Red, come on, you know this leads nowhere good. You deserve better than to go all dark-side again.”

“You can’t really speak, miss 25 to life for murder,” says Willow, and Morgan takes another look at Faith. She looks far too young to have spent 25 years in prison, barely in her mid-30s, but then, what does he know of magic? Maybe she’s actually a couple of centuries old, who knows?

“You should take it from me, then. Red, you and I will always have to fight the darkness within us. Don’t give in to it. You’re better than this.”

Willow makes another motion with her hand, sending Faith flying.

“Try to stop me if you can,” she says, and Morgan thinks he hears a plea in her voice. Somewhere in there their Willow, the _real_ Willow, is trying to get back in control. He doesn’t know exactly what’s happening – Hotch and Reid know more about the details of her history, and he’s fairly sure not even they knew about the freaky superpowers gig – but he knows that this isn’t Willow. Their Willow has an almost overdeveloped sense of compassion, and would want to help the Takthroon, whatever the hell that is.

“This isn’t justice,” says Buffy. “This is vengeance. And you know what happens when you get the vengeance on? You get a visit by D’Hoffryn, and this time you might just say yes to him. Do you really want that? Think long and hard before you say anything. D’Hoffryn, Willow. Can you say _eeewww_?”

There’s a groan from the floor. Maryam, the younger Slayer, is helping Reid stand up. It looks like she’s the only thing keeping him on his feet, and she must be a lot stronger than she looks, because Morgan would be surprised if she’s more than 5 feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, and yet she doesn’t look at all fazed holding Reid up.

“Please,” he says, and Willow turns her black eyes on him.

“Do you want me to kill him for you?” she asks. “I can end this right now.”

If a stick could look terrified, Morgan swears the Takthroon looks like it’s about to bolt.

“No,” Reid says. “Don’t hurt him, please.”

The fight seems to drain out of Willow, and her eyes turn to their normal color. Buffy and Faith are there to catch her as she collapses against them.

“Oh Goddess,” she says. “Oh Goddess.”

“Well, on the bright side, there was no killing,” says Buffy holding her up.

“Thank the Goddess,” says Willow fervently. She looks at where the Takthroon is lying on the floor, shivering, and takes a few hesitant steps towards it. Maryam hustles Reid out of the warehouse, followed by the two witches. Faith and Buffy stay with Willow. She falls on her knees beside the Takthroon and puts her hands around it somewhere on the upper body, where its face would be if it was human.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “So very sorry.”

The Takthroon turns all its little twigs towards her, like a plant seeking the sun. Willow is crying, and the Takthroon is sobbing as well.

“You poor thing,” she murmurs at him. “You poor, poor thing. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. We’ll make everything right.”

Hotch pulls up outside the warehouse and they all pile out. They don’t know what’s happening in the warehouse, but they find Reid surrounded by the witches and the young Slayer, as well as an older gentleman in tweed. They push in to make sure he’s okay, to make sure he knows they’re there.

“Reid, you OK?” Morgan asks, and the other man nods.

“I’m fine,” he says. “What was that?”

“It’s a Takthroon,” says the man who must be Giles. “Normally they are a very peaceful species, but we believe this one was driven into killing when the rest of his tribe was slaughtered by humans – apparently the demon community knew it had happened, but they were unaware of any survivors. Takthroons are psychic, and they depend on the connections they feel with the rest of their tribe to feel complete. Losing that connection would be as traumatic as losing part of the brain for a human, if not more so. It’s no excuse, of course, but it does offer some explanation, perhaps.”

“A trigger,” Reid mutters, almost as if to himself. Morgan isn’t sure if it’s a comfort that demons can apparently be triggered in the same way humans can, that they (or at least some species) are just as complicated as humans.

“So, what happens now?” JJ asks.

“Now, we take the Takthroon to the clan in LA, who will do their best to heal him, and I take Willow to the coven in Devon, who will do their best to heal _her_ ,” Giles says as the rest of the warehouse party troops out. The Takthroon is practically glued to Willow, which seems strange given that less than ten minutes ago she had to be talked out of killing him. They both look drained.

“I take it everything went well?” Giles asks, putting a blanket round Willow’s shoulders.

“Well, there was a brief appearance by Darth Rosenberg, but I didn’t kill anyone, so I guess that’s progress,” Willow says. “I’ve made a psychic connection to try to fill the void left by his clan, but the quicker we can get to LA the better.”

“We managed to talk her out of the killing,” Buffy says. “We threatened her with D’Hoffryn, that seemed to do the trick. Not that I blame her, because _D’Hoffryn_.”

“I think it was more the fact that her friend didn’t want her to,” Faith objects.

“I’m sure the mention of D’Hoffryn helped,” Buffy says, unperturbed. “Isn’t that right, Wills? You got scared when I mentioned D’Hoffryn?”

“Terrified,” Willow says deadpan. “Nothing scares me quite like a petty vengeance demon.”

“See?” Buffy asks triumphantly.

“Yes, well,” Giles says. “I think we’re ready to leave.”

“Can I have a few moments?” Willow asks.

“Yes, of course,” Giles says.

Willow walks over to where the team is still surrounding Reid.

“I’m sorry,” she says. She looks pale and wan, and won’t meet any of their eyes.

“What for?” he asks. “You saved me.”

“I’m sorry I lied and kept secrets from you. I’m sorry you had to see me go all Dark Willow. I must have scared you.”

“Don’t be. You saved me,” he says again. He steps forward and hugs her. She clings to him for a few moments before Giles clears his throat behind her.

They watch in silence as she’s led away by Giles.

“So,” Morgan says as the Council people draw some figures on the ground and disappear in a flash of light. “Who wants a drink?”

*

Two weeks later, there’s an e-mail from Willow, apologizing again to all of them. It explains everything, about how she got involved in the supernatural world in high school, her magic addiction, Tara’s death and how Willow fell apart after it, the terrible days right before the collapse of Sunnydale, Willow’s spell changing the world, setting up the schools for the newly activated Slayers, and finally the event that brought Willow to them, when a demon clan attacked the school and killed ten fourteen-year-old Slayers in their sleep, plus the Watchers in charge of them, and she used a very dark spell to exact revenge. She had decided (and the rest of the Council had agreed) that it would be better if she stayed away from the supernatural world after that, at least until she felt more stable, maybe permanently. And so Giles had made arrangements with the government and found her an opening as an assistant technical analyst for the FBI, and she met the team.

_You guys were so good to me,_ she writes, _and you made me feel like one of you. You helped me heal, and I will always appreciate that. I hated having to lie to you. All the stories I told you guys and Jack, they really happened. I think I told them so I could feel less like I was lying about who I was and what my life had been. I hope you can forgive me, both for the lies, and for what happened in that warehouse when I fell back into the dark magics again. We still think it’s best if I stay away from the supernatural world as much as possible, but I know now that I’m not even safe in the mundane world. If you never want to see me again, I will understand. I just want you to know that your friendship meant everything to me at a time when I was really struggling, and I will never forget you._

_I’m very sorry._

They all reassure her that she’s forgiven, that they understand, that they miss her, that they’re saving her desk for when she’s ready to come back. That she’s family.

*

She looks small, smaller than she did the first time they met her. She hovers at the door to the bullpen, looking unsure of herself. Spencer spots her first, and lets out a pleased sound, but it’s Garcia who reaches her first and folds her into a tight embrace. Willow clings tightly to her and doesn’t cry, even though they can all see how shiny her eyes are as they pile around her.

“Welcome home,” Garcia says.

 


End file.
